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The Rich As Apex Predators

The rich: such a, pardon me, rich cultural vein, the growth of extreme wealth exceeded only by its multiplying claim on the zeitgeist.

The rumor is that the public cares exactly how much each celebrity tycoon is worth at the end of each day. I suspect we’re more curious about the changes extreme wealth makes in human DNA, and whether it’s safer to worship the elect, mock them or tax them.

The top .01% is heavily invested in persuading the teeming masses beyond the security fence of its shared humanity. It’s endlessly busy with good works. The Tom Perkinses of the world might have convinced themselves their wealth measures their intrinsic worth; their street-smart peers know to credit luck rather than talent.

Are the super-rich richer relative to the rest than in the past? The Financial Times claims it has found flaws in Thomas Picketty’s data, defusing the fashionable economist’s claims to that effect. But the Financial Times hasn’t yet disqualified a wealth of other data pointing to the same conclusion. The trend in proxies on executive pay is pretty easy to spot. Globalization and the economies of scale inherent in information technology have so obviously favored the few at the apex of the economic pyramid that an academic study by a French economist has become a bestseller.

Comedian Louis CK is a recent enough arrival to the ranks of the economic elite to still be able to lampoon its presumptions and affectations. In a recent episode of “Louie,” Jerry Seinfeld, playing himself as an oblivious member of the country club set, invites Louie to warm up for him at a Hamptons benefit as a last-minute stand in. Seinfeld neglects to tell his less successful pal that the event is black tie, but notes that the appearance is unpaid and Louie will have to get there on his own. “These things can be good, I think it will be good for you,” Jerry says.

Louie arrives underdressed and is repeatedly straight-armed by the handlers accompanying the guests, who themselves appear not to see him. A disgusted Seinfeld bundles him into a security guard’s uniform jacket, but won’t give Louie an introduction or even tell him the name of the benefit’s charity.

Louie: Who are these people? They look like celebrities but I don’t recognize any of them.

Jerry: These are the billionaires and trillionaires of Hampton Beach.

Louie: There are trillionaires now?

Jerry: Yeah

The unprepared Louie bombs, of course, with lines like “You know when you go to a supermarket? Not that any of you would ever do your own shopping. I know the you guys don’t shop for yourselves, of course. Because you all have slaves somehow still. No, I just mean people who work for you who you all don’t pay.”

Louie’s just bumbling, but the writer Louis CK has provided a neat approximation of what Opposite Tom Perkins speaking against the 1% might sound like.

There are other nice touches, like when Louie and his lone admirer in the audience end up shouting at each other from across a courtyard, neither hearing a word the other is saying. She still picks him up, but a dream date with the model and heiress doesn’t end well for Louie, who injures her accidentally and is threatened with a $10 million lawsuit by her vengeful father.

The episode’s overarching premise is that the super-rich are, in fact, a different species from schlubs like Louie, not suitable for harmless interaction.

This is TV fiction, of course, and surely real-world relations are not this fraught. But they’re not entirely reassuring either.

On Friday, we learned that a billionaire has unmasked an anonymous blogger for the crime of disagreeing with his opinion. The billionaire in question is Pershing Square hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and he didn’t even bother to wipe his fingerprints from the New York Post story outing a previously annonymous critic of Ackman’s crusade against HerbalifeHerbalife (NYSE: HLF).

Herbalife is a multi-level-marketing diet shake distributor that has built a profitable business recruiting the economically disadvantaged into its sales force with dreams of entrepreneurial success, which tend not to work out. Ackman claims Herbalife is a scam, has made a huge bet against the stock and has lobbied public officials to investigate and ultimately shut down the company.

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